As part of the agreement signed by the President of Uruguay, the Minister for Public Health, the Minister for Finance and the Economy, and the Governmental Agency for Electronics and the Information Society (AGESIC) regarding the Salud.uy Program, the International Health Terminology Standards Organization has granted membership to Uruguay.
This step means that Uruguay will become the first country in Latin America to join the Association. In other countries in the Region, some institutions such as the Hospital Italiano use Snomed CT via licenses but they must do so on their own account and at their own cost and so they are not available to the rest of the public health system.
In contrast, as a result of this contract, all the organizations in the healthcare system in Uruguay will be able to use the SNOMED CT license for free.
Talking to Ehealth Reporter Latin America sources from Salud.uy, explained how and why Uruguay took the decision to join the IHTSDO. The implementation of the Electronic Health Record, within the need to provide a proper information record for care and to support the analysis of stored clinical information, should also include a suitable process that establishes the use of terminology and representation of clinical knowledge for observations, orders, results, diagnostics and other areas. They thus need to be in a position to support the content of the Electronic Health Record with concept-oriented terminology such as SNOMED CT, a model that makes it possible to improve the quality of information recorded, as all the concepts are interrelated with other dimensions such as relationships, hierarchies, and chronologies that make it into an ontological tool specialized in the representation of healthcare knowledge.
The National Electronic Health Record (HCEN) section of the Salud.uy project has decided upon the strategy of using SNOMED CT and so has joined the international association that makes use of said terminology. The membership shall be taken up by AGESIC via the Salud.uy program, committing to meeting the conditions the association requires in order to meet its objectives.
Responsibilities Assumed
One of the Association s conditions for membership is that they must establish an administration regime for the use of IHTSDO terminology products in their territory in order to fulfill several functions required by the Terms and Conditions for intellectual property.
Firstly, this regime should be the first point of contact with the Association with regard to all administrative aspects of terminology products in the country. It also has the obligation to establish and maintain processes for the distribution and licensing of terminology products in its territory.
In addition, AGESIC will be the first point of contact in the country for people who wish to find out more about terminology products, including licenses for terminology products, updates and improvements.
Another of its roles will be to ensure that all the products and communications that the Agency issues within its jurisdiction that are based on products of Association Terminology are prepared, checked and administered according to the Association s guidelines. It is imperative, furthermore, that a record is maintained of problems and other issues reported during the use of terminology Products, that proposals for updates and improvements to terminological products are supported and documented and that the distribution and applications of Association Terminology products, registered trademarks and other intellectual property are monitored.
AGESIC must also maintain a record of all the licenses given to affiliates in Uruguay, put forward experts and other appropriate persons to contribute to the work of the IHTSDO and help them in their communications with affiliates and qualified experts who wish to sign up as affiliates to the Association.
Finally, it will participate in the election of members to the Board of Directors, Permanent Committees and other roles in the Association administration.
Distribution of Licenses
With regard to how licenses to use SNOMED will be distributed among public and private healthcare organizations in the country, the Program would administer the set of licenses as they are requested by different actors in Uruguayan healthcare and will report this information to IHTSDO.
Organizations interested in the use of software should sign a contract with AGESIC which will enable them to use it free under the terms and conditions established in the contract which includes the definition of a strategy and communications plan.
